In Competition No. 3237, you were invited to submit a short story using words of only one syllable. This challenge produced a delightfully diverse entry with echoes of Dr Seuss, Hemingway, Kafka, Shakespeare and Beckett. The winning slots were keenly contested and I regretted not having space for Frank McDonald’s meditation on St Paul and
In Competition No. 3236, you were invited to submit a poem that begins ‘Oh my love is like…’ . From the funny and sweet to the waspish and jaundiced, the entry ranged pleasingly far and wide; as the poet Patrick Kavanagh wrote in his sonnet ‘The Hospital’ (‘A year ago I fell in love with
In Competition No. 3235, you were invited to invent a prequel to a well-known work of literature and supply an extract from it. In a stellar entry, Nick MacKinnon, Sue Pickard, Max Ross, Bob Trewin and Lorna Wood all shone, but the £25 prizes go to the following: Believing it never to be my Fortune
In Competition No. 3234, you were invited to submit either a poem or a short story entitled ‘Covid’s metamorphoses’. Thanks are due to Frank Upton, who suggested this tremendous and timely challenge. It attracted a pleasingly large and diverse entry (overwhelmingly made up of verse rather than prose), in which the limerick was well represented.
In Competition No. 3233, you were invited to invent a new character for the Mr Men/Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves and submit an extract from his or her story. The first character to make an appearance, in 1971, was orange Mr Tickle with his long, wiggly arms. Fifty years on, Mr T.’s overly tactile
In Competition No. 3232, you were invited to retell a news story from the past year in sonnet form. An excellent entry this week included submissions ranging far and wide, from Harry Patch and the Everly Brothers to Alaskan walruses and Jeff Bezos’s penis. Commendations to Josephine Boyle, C. Paul Evans, Dorothy Pope, R.M. Goddard,
In Competition No. 3231, you were invited to supply an example of pretentious wine writing. Space is tight and the standard stellar, so to make way for the maximum number of winners I’ll pause only to commiserate with unlucky losers Brian Murdoch and Basil Ransome-Davies before handing over to those printed below, who earn £25
In Competition No. 3230, you were invited to supply a double acrostic poem, the first and last letters of each line, read vertically, spelling out The Spectator and New Statesman in either order. This fiendish technical challenge, designed to sweep away the cobwebs, drew an entry that was on the smallish side but varied and
In Competition No. 3229, you were invited to provide the story of the Nativity retold in the style of a well-known author. Star performers, in a most excellent entry, included Janine Beacham’s W.S. Gilbert: Young Mary was the model of a good and humble Nazarene, So Gabriel requested of her, ‘be our human go-between, you will conceive
In Competition No. 3228, you were invited to provide a well-known extract from adult literature rewritten for inclusion in an anthology of children’s literature. It was Julie Burchill’s verdict, in this magazine, on Sally Rooney’s latest novel that prompted me to set this task: ‘Her writing is so blank,’ she wrote, ‘that in parts it
In Competition No. 3227, you were invited to provide verses to help children remember the sequence of the last eight US presidents. The same challenge was set in these pages more than 30 years ago, and on that occasion the late Martin Fagg, a titan in the world of literary competitions, emerged victorious. Here’s a
In Competition No. 3226, you were invited to rewrite, in pompous and prolix style, any well-known simple poem. The seed for this pleasingly popular challenge was a recasting of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, attributed to John Raymond Carson, which begins: ‘Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific…’ Star performers, in a most excellent and enjoyable entry, include AdrianFry’s
In Competition No. 3225, you were invited to provide a version of the Lord Chancellor’s ‘Nightmare Song’ from Iolanthe for any member of the British cabinet. Long Gilbertian lines mean there’s space only for me to applaud stellar contributions all round, but especially from D.A. Prince, Katie Mallett, Rachael Churchill, Janine Beacham, George Simmers and
In Competition No. 3224, you were invited to submit snippets of misleading advice either for tourists visiting Britain or for British tourists travelling abroad. You normally embrace this challenge with mischievous relish but this time around the mood felt somewhat muted, perhaps not surprising under the circumstances. There were plenty of zingers all the same,
In Competition No. 3223, you were invited to supply an acrostic poem in which the first letter of each line, read vertically, spells DENNIS AND GNASHER. A varied and excellent entry, which celebrated with gusto the Beano’s spirit of naughtiness and irreverence, also reflected how it has evolved to accommodate modern sensibilities. As Stuart Jeffries
In Competition No. 3222, you were invited to supply a dystopian short story that incorporates as many collective nouns for animals or birds as possible. Your appetite for dystopian imaginings may be somewhat limited at the moment — ‘How about setting something sweet and optimistic?’ write Frank Upton — and there was a dismal sameness
In Competition No. 3221, you were invited to submit an ode on the Marble Arch Mound. The 25 metre-high artificial hillock, dubbed ‘Teletubby Hill’, has drawn near universal mockery and derision, leaving Westminster City Council red-faced and poorer to the tune of £6 million. But it inspired a funny, imaginative entry, with a strong whiff
In Competition No. 3220, you were invited to supply a newly discovered short story by a well-known 19th- or 20th-century poet. In a distinguished entry, Nick MacKinnon’s tale — unearthed in Wendy Cope’s archive and featuring the poet herself and her alter ego Jake/Jason Strugnell — stood out; as did Brian Murdoch’s T.S. Eliot, showing
In Competition No. 3219, you were invited to supply clerihews on well-known scientists, past and present. The subject of the first ever clerihew — a pseudo-biographical quatrain, AABB, playful in tone, metrically clunky — which was written, for fun, in about 1890 by schoolboy E.C. Bentley (and illustrated by his chum G.K. Chesterton) was a
In Competition No. 3218, you were invited to supply a recipe as it might have been written by the author of your choice. I tip my hat to Mark Crick’s Kafka’s Soup, which gave me the idea for this excellent challenge. In it you’ll find such delights as John Steinbeck’s mushroom risotto, Virginia Woolf’s clafoutis
